


Casualty

by dogandmonkeyshow



Series: Watson's Woes JWP 2017 fics [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hospitals, Injury, Quasi-medical handwaviness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11373000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogandmonkeyshow/pseuds/dogandmonkeyshow
Summary: After a tumble on the rugby pitch, John finally makes it to the A&E.





	Casualty

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Watson's Woes DW comm's July Writing Prompts daily challenge, prompt #1: _Injury, not Holmes POV_.
> 
> This is a kind-of sequal to my first fic from last year's JWP, [Bruise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7361812/chapters/16721107), but no knowledge of that fic is necessary. The story takes place some time around S01-ish. *waves vaguely*
> 
> And in case there might be any doubt: I am most definitely not a doctor, though I have spent far more than my fair share of time in A&E departments.

Marta grabbed the next file on the intake pile and flipped it open. Suspected fractured ulna, sport injury. She sighed; men and their obsession with crashing into one another for fun. Fine for children; not so healthy for the middle-aged. Over her thirty years in the A&E it seemed like people were just getting stupider.

Still reading the file, she walked into exam room 4. “John Watson.” She glanced at the stocky, sandy-haired man dangling his legs off the edge of the exam table, then back to the file.

“Yeah.”

“Who are you?”

Marta turned to face a tall, dark-haired man with a pallor that the goths she'd known in high school would have killed for. He'd obviously thought that kitting himself up to look like a modern-dress Dracula was a good idea, but if he'd asked her she'd have disabused him of that notion. It made him look like a tit.

“Doctor Brydon. Who are you?”

“Sherlock Holmes,” the man intoned as if that was supposed to mean something to her. She bit her tongue on a “Yeah, so what?” but he seemed to read the words in her mind and sniffed pointedly before turning away.

As she returned to her patient the idea popped into her mind that the two of them seemed an odd pair, one so seemingly normal the other—not, then brushed it aside as irrelevant. Her patient said his friend's name in warning tones that spoke of long acquaintance with the notion that his friend was a complete wanker, then said to her, “Fractured ulna.” He pointed at his left arm, braced carefully against his stomach.

“Why don't you let me be the judge of that.” Marta heard Count Dracula behind her snort. She wondered if she should get herself a rain poncho; at this rate he's be sneezing on her before she managed to send his friend off to Radiography.

She carefully drew Watson's arm away from his body and commenced her exam; the swelling and tenderness five inches up from the wrist were indicative of a fracture; his “diagnosis” was most likely right on the mark and the shape of the swelling indicated the radius might be broken, as well.

“Well, that'll need—” She paused; she'd noticed that the door of one of the supply cupboards was ajar. One of the orderlies had been restocking earlier that afternoon, but they were always scrupulous about locking up again. She glanced from Watson (obvious guilty conscience) to his friend (the insouciance of the conscious-free guilty), then ducked her head out the door and asked one of the cleaners to track down one of the orderlies for her.

She stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed, while she waited. After a minute or so, Watson asked, “So, are you going to order an x-ray?”

“Not until someone comes to lock that up.” She pointed at the cupboard. She sensed Dracula was about to protest, so she held her hand up without even turning to look at him. “You should have thought about that before you broke in.” Then she turned to him. “Every minute extra he's in pain is your fault, boyo.”

The men shared a look that spoke of an argument to come, in private. Marta sighed, took her pen out of her pocket, and re-opened Watson's file. “So. What happened?”

Watson appeared relieved to be back on topic. “Rugby. Took a tackle; landed wrong.”

“What makes you think it's broken?”

He gave her a sarcastic grimace and held up his arm, which was discoloured and quite spectacularly swollen, though there was no obvious displacement. 

“Didn't they give you ice for that in triage?”

He shrugged. “It hurt too much.”

“Have you taken anything for the pain?”

Watson shook his head. 

“When did it happen?”

He glanced at his watch. “Uh, just over four hours ago.”

“Almost three hours of which he spent in your waiting room,” the friend interjected.

“You ever been shot or have a heart attack?” Marta asked, then continued without waiting for a reply. “Because when you do, I'll make sure the suspected fractures are treated before you.” Marta hated few things more than self-designated doctors or amateur dramatics in her A&E, especially from public-school fatheads who always liked to whine about paying taxes, then whined about their local A&E being understaffed.

Luckily for her, one of the orderlies arrived to lock up the supply cupboard; she was able to finally get away from Public School Dracula and returned to the nursing station. She ordered Watson a trip to Radiography and asked one of the nurses to give him morphine for the pain that was making him squint in a way that was characteristic if you knew what to look for. He was obviously in considerable distress, but was also obviously one of those men who thought a stiff upper lip possessed pharmaceutical properties. Then she pushed both men out of her mind and moved on to the next unfortunate.

Two hours later, after a stabbing, eclampsia, sepsis, the worst case of measles she'd ever seen, one third of a cheese and pickle sandwich, a dog bite, severe dehydration, the third stroke of her shift, and a crushed finger, she was back in exam room 4. Public School Dracula was still guarding his friend.

“Well, you've got the Two for One Special, I'm afraid,” she said to Watson. She missed the drama of having a physical x-ray sheet to whip out and show patients; a digital image on a tablet just seemed so commonplace.

Watson examined it. “Yep. Thought so.” In Marta's experience, patients who paid attention to medical imaging were trying to impress, but this one looked like he knew—

“You're a doctor,” she said as he continued to examine the image. 

He smiled as he handed the tablet back to her. “Yep.”

“That's pretty poor form, you know, not telling.”

“Sorry.”

He didn't sound in the least bit sorry. Marta remembered her previous assessment of them as an odd match, and wondered if Watson was just better than his friend at hiding that he was a bit of an arsehole. “Well, I suppose I won't have to give you the spiel, then. A nurse will be by—some time—to mummify that for you.” She pointed at the arm. 

Marta snapped Watson's file closed and tucked it under her arm. “No heavy lifting, no climbing trees; you know the drill.” He nodded, then glanced to his friend, sharing a look she couldn't interpret and wouldn't want to even if she could. “Take care, then, _Doctor_ Watson,” she said with a little smile as she returned to the nursing station and her next unfortunate of the day, ignoring the domestic that broke out behind her.


End file.
